Afternoon/morning all. I am both traveling today and having some road computer challenges so a slightly abbreviated Saturday Hopium.
We start with a conversation I had late yesterday with one of our Hopium House 7, Rep. Janelle Bynum. The recording and transcript can be found above. This is the second in a series of “check ins” we’re doing with the 7 House Members whom we helped elect last cycle. Rep. Bynum hails from a battleground district in the Portland area and offers us a wonderful window to what it’s like to be a freshman Member in these early, terrible days of Trump 2.0. Our first interview in this series was with Derek Tran from CA-45 in Southern California. Hope you will get to them when you have the time and please consider donating to our Hopium 7 before the March 31st deadline. Our first step in winning back the House is shoring up our incumbents and these 7 are some of the most important newly-elected incumbents we must protect.
GDP Nowcast/Stock Market/Consumer Sentiment Fall, Trump’s Madness Is Tanking The American Economy - Yesterday I shared the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate of 1st quarter GDP falling almost 6 points in the last two months due to Trump’s reckless economic policies. Well shortly after publishing yesterday the estimate was updated, and it dropped another full point. This important measure that US financial markets pay close attention to has now dropped almost 7 points under Trump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We are now experiencing what has to be understood as one of the greatest fuck ups and policy failures in America history. Trump has turned the strongest economy in the developed world into a disaster in a remarkably short period of time - on purpose, by design. As we discussed yesterday it’s critical we continue to see Trump as a failure, a loser, a madman, a weak man, a buffoon, a fool - anything but the strong and successful leader he falsely sold to the public last year.
Reupping something I wrote on Thursday. I do believe that two of the core pillars of Trump’s brand have begun to erode, significantly; and this erosion helps explain why we saw the ugly retreat on Rep. Stefanik’s nomination this week. This past week has been without doubt the worst week in Trump’s tenure:
Two key takeaways from my talk this morning. First, this new scandal is a very serious one, and it is going to further degrade Trump’s increasing degraded brand. I think two of the key pillars of Trump’s appeal to his non-MAGA voters (20-25% of those who voted for him) - that he would bring prosperity, greater opportunity and a better life; and that he would effectively run the government, make it more efficient, save money, be a “reformer” - are starting to come undone. We’ve discussed here that he has already lost that “better life” pillar, as voters have come to believe that Trump means tariffs, higher prices, more struggle for families. Now I think the combination of Musk’s reckless rampage on the US government and the historic buffoonery of Signalgate is undermining the “run Washington like a business/reform” pillar. Without these two pillars what is left for voters to see is the Trump we’ve known all along - sadistic madman, extremist, betrayer of the country and the the worst and most dangerous man America has ever produced. What is left is historic and profound ugliness.
More Great Conversations For Your Weekend Viewing and Listening Pleasure - If you haven’t gotten to them yet be sure to check out my new conversations about the unprecedented corruption of the Trump regime; how his foreign policy was leaving America a far weaker and less safe nation; the malevolent strategy behind disappearing students and others here legally in the country; and how the new leadership team at the DNC was approaching all these challenges now. Lots of meaty stuff in here when you can get to it.
Saying No To Trump - On Thursday I shared with you a new video and post testing out what I hope is a a better and more powerful way of describing what Trump is doing to the country and why he must be stopped. If you haven’t yet checked out my new “Saying No To Trump” pitch please do this weekend. Reaction from the Hopium community has been very positive so far, and I encourage our paid subscribers to offer feedback to help take it to the next stage of development.
Help Close The Quarter, and Wisconsin, Strong!!!!!- Monday is March 31st, the end of the quarter. The financial health of our campaigns and party committees are evaluated every quarter so please chip in whatever you can to our Hopium-backed efforts in the coming days. Tuesday is also the all-important election in Wisconsin, and we still have some ways to go to hit our super stretch goal there. Monday is also the last day of Hopium’s March Anniversary sale which gets you 10% off an annual paid subscription.
Recommended Hopium Actions and Campaigns - While we have made many recommendations to Democrats in recent months for how to raise our game and fight harder and smarter, let’s focus on our current four recommended sets of actions for how we can best channel our love of country and our frustrations into concrete action today:
1 - Fight The Trump-Musk Attack On Our Government, Our Privacy And Our Constitutional Order - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in a joint Senate-House Letter to America; to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this several weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.
2 - Loudly Protest Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of NATO and Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European and NATO allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin, and my new interview with Rep. Adam Smith, the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, one of the most important foreign policy voices in our party.
Part II - do all this and demand that Hegseth and Gabbard resign. Hegseth is obvious. He sent war plans on an insecure chat and simply can no longer be trusted. Gabbard for she is in charge of intelligence for the US, and must take responsibility for participating in and not stopping one of the most significant security breaches in US history.
3 - Our Work In The States, The Spring Offensive - I am going to rework this section in the next few days as so much has happened since we called on our community members to organize in the 17 most vulnerable Republican House seats. Rallies and protests have exploded across the country. The DNC/House Dems/State Parties have kicked off People’s Town Halls in all 50 states. I have come to believe that we should be leaning on our state and local electeds to pursue these organized “condemnations” of the Trump regime and their betrayal of America. Let’s start talking now about what we are going to do on July 4th, a day with all of a sudden much more importance.
Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.
Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind in addition to our new House Hopium 7:
Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.
Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben. Thanks to a huge surge of support in recent days we have already raised $221,000 from over 2,500 of you, blowing past our original $50,000 goal and now our stretch goals of $100,000, $125,000 and $150,000. We are now upping this to a new superduper-stretch goal of $225,000 by March 31st. Amazing work everyone!
Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. You can give to all 7 through a single donation to our new ActBlue page and learn more about this important effort here. We’ve already raised over $34,000 towards our $50,000 March 31st goal - thank you all!
Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government. We’ve raised more than $70,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!
Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year. We’ve raised $28,000 so far - thank you all!
Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,400 of you have donated over $103,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start!
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
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